$100 in 1967 is worth $133 in 1973,
because prices increased 32.9% over that period, an average of
4.86% a year.
$100 in 1967 has
the same buying power as
$133
in 1973
Detailed inflation statistics
Cumulative price change
32.9%
Average inflation rate
4.86% per year
Converted amount ($100 base)
$133
Price difference ($100 base)
$32.93
CPI in 1967
33.4
CPI in 1973
44.4
Inflation in 1967
3.09%
Inflation in 1973
6.22%
$100 in 1967 → 1973
$133
$100 in 1973 → 1967
$75.23
What happened to prices between 1967 and 1973
Between 1967 and 1973, the Consumer Price Index went from 33.4 to 44.4.
Cumulatively, prices increased 32.9%, which works out to an average of
4.86% per year. Put differently, a dollar in 1967 bought what
$0.75 buys in 1973: the 1967 dollar
lost 24.8% of its purchasing power over
these 6 years.
Consumer prices rose 3.1% in 1967, up from 1966’s 2.9% as
Vietnam War spending kept climbing alongside expanding Great Society
programs, a combination of rising military and domestic outlays that
economists later blamed for entrenching inflation through the rest of the
decade. The minimum wage rose that February 1, to $1.40 an hour, the
first step of a phased increase Congress had set the year before. Urban
unrest reached a peak that July, when days of rioting left 26 dead in
Newark and 43 dead in Detroit, the deadliest of that summer’s roughly 160
disturbances; Johnson responded by forming the Kerner Commission to study
the causes of the unrest. The Supreme Court gained its first Black
justice that year too: the Senate confirmed Thurgood Marshall on August
30, and he was sworn in that October after serving as U.S. Solicitor
General and, before that, as the lead attorney in Brown v. Board of
Education. Consumer prices finished 1967 237.4% above their
1913 level. First-class postage held at 5 cents.
Every 1967 amount converts to 1973 at the same ratio, 1.33: $1,000 becomes
$1,329, and $10,000 becomes $13,293.
Amount in 1967
Value in 1973
$1.00
$1.33
$5.00
$6.65
$10.00
$13.29
$20.00
$26.59
$50.00
$66.47
$100
$133
$500
$665
$1,000
$1,329
$5,000
$6,647
$10,000
$13,293
$100,000
$132,934
$1,000,000
$1,329,341
Inflation by spending category, 1967–1973
Between 1967 and 1973, food rose the most, up 41.3%, while energy rose the least, up 23.5%, against 32.9% for all items. The headline number is an average; here is what $100 of 1967
spending costs in 1973, by category:
Category
Avg. yearly inflation
$100 in 1967 →
All items (CPI-U)
4.86%
$133
Food
5.94%
$141
Medical care
5.46%
$138
Housing
4.97%
$134
Core (all items less food & energy)
4.66%
$131
Apparel
4.02%
$127
Transportation
3.61%
$124
Energy
3.58%
$124
Not shown because the BLS began these indexes after 1967: recreation (1993–), education & communication (1993–).
Decade by decade: 1967 to 1973
Prices climbed fastest in the 1960s, averaging 5.12% a year, and slowest in the 1970s (4.60% a year). Each step below chains into the full 1967–1973 change:
Years
Avg. yearly inflation
Price change
$100 from 1967, at end
1967–1970
5.12%
16.2%
$116
1970–1973
4.60%
14.4%
$133
Year by year: CPI and the value of $100 from 1967
$100 from 1967 had already become $116 by
1970, on its way to $133 in 1973; each row shows the CPI, that
year's inflation rate, and the running value.
Within the span, inflation peaked at 6.2% in 1973, and the smallest rise was 3.2% in 1972.
In 1973, prices rose 6.2% and $100 from 1967 had the buying
power of $133; the year's average CPI of 44.4 is the level
behind every 1973 figure on this page.
Consumer prices rose 6.2% in 1973, nearly double 1972’s 3.2%,
as Nixon’s wage and price controls were phased out through the year and
pressure the controls had been holding back broke loose. The bigger shock
arrived that October, when Arab oil-producing states embargoed exports to the
United States and other supporters of Israel in the Yom Kippur War. Crude
oil, which had traded around $3 a barrel, approached $12 by early 1974, and
gas lines became a fixture outside filling stations nationwide. Earlier in
the year, the Paris Peace Accords, signed that January 27, ended direct
American combat in Vietnam and set a 60-day deadline for withdrawing
remaining U.S. troops, even as fighting between North and South Vietnam went
on. Financial markets read the year correctly as a turning point: the Dow
Jones Industrial Average peaked at 1,051.70 on January 11, a level it would
not reach again until 1980, before the oil shock and rising interest rates
dragged it into a two-year bear market. A median household earned $10,512 in
1973, a new home sold for a median $32,500, and gas averaged 38.5 cents a
gallon, still under half of what the embargo’s effects would bring the
following year. Consumer prices stood 348.5% above their
1913 level by year’s end, with the decade’s worst inflation
still ahead.
MLA: “Inflation from 1967 to 1973: $100 is worth $133 today.” InflationCalculator.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data, https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1973/
APA: InflationCalculator.com. Inflation from 1967 to 1973. Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U data. Retrieved from https://inflationcalculator.com/inflation/1967-to-1973/